Commenting
on one plausible origin for the early Christian use of the Staurogram in
manuscripts, Larry Hurtado wrote:
The tau-rho device may have been
appropriated by Christians originally, not (or not simply) on the basis of
numerical symbolism, but because it could function as a visual reference to the crucified Jesus. This is not an original
suggestion, but was proposed earlier, notably by Aland and then supported
strongly by Dinkler. In this proposal, the tau-rho
device was appropriated initially because it could serve as a stylized visual reference to (and representation of)
Jesus on the cross. The tau is
confirmed as an early symbol of the cross, and it is proposed that the loop of
the superimposed rho in the tau-rho suggested the head of a
crucified figure. This very simply pictogram-reference to the crucifixion of
Jesus fits with the simplicity and lack of decorative detail that characterize earliest
Christian art. As Robin Margaret Jensen notes in her recent excellent introduction
to early Christian art, the simple nature of the visual expressions of faith in
the earliest material ‘suggests that communication was valued above artistic
quality or refinement and that the emphasis was on the meaning behind the
images more than on their presentation’. Commendably (and unusually among
historians of early Christian art), Jensen takes note of the instances of the tau-rho device in the early papyri to
which I draw attention in this essay, characterizing the combined letters as
forming ‘a kind of pictogram, the image of a man’s head upon a cross’, and observing
that the device ‘seems to be an actual reference to the cross of crucifixion .
. ‘ . . . If [Dinkler’s] proposal is correct (and if the common dating of the
papyri in question is correct), the tau-rho
represents a visual reference to Jesus’ crucifixion about 150 to 200 years
earlier than the late fourth- or fifth-century depictions that are usually
taken by art historians as the earliest. (Larry W. Hurtado “The Staurogram in Early
Christian Manuscripts” in Texts and
Artefacts: Selected Essays on Textual Criticism and Early Christian Manuscripts
[Library of New Testament Studies 584; London: T&T Clark, 2019], 152-53;
click here
for an online version of this essay)